What are some common mistakes beginners make when working with $_POST parameters in PHP?

One common mistake beginners make when working with $_POST parameters in PHP is not properly sanitizing user input, which can lead to security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection attacks. To solve this issue, always use functions like htmlspecialchars() or mysqli_real_escape_string() to sanitize user input before using it in your code.

// Sanitize user input from $_POST parameters
$username = htmlspecialchars($_POST['username']);
$password = htmlspecialchars($_POST['password']);

// Use the sanitized input in your code
// For example, executing a query with mysqli_real_escape_string()
$query = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE username='" . mysqli_real_escape_string($conn, $username) . "' AND password='" . mysqli_real_escape_string($conn, $password) . "'";
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $query);